


Cold as Ice

by Canadian_girl2000



Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Cass does too, Gen, God why can't I think of a good title, Tim and Damian show up a bit at the end, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, sorry boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28280970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadian_girl2000/pseuds/Canadian_girl2000
Summary: Waking up in a freezing cold room was a terrible feeling, and one Jason had never wanted to experience. He slowly peeled his eyes open and glanced around. He was in an industrial meat freezer. Well. That explained the cold. Hung on the meat hook next to him was Nightwing, hanging upside down, unconscious.orI lock two batboys in a freezer and hope they don't freeze to death.Whump"tober" day 11: Hypothermia
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946773
Comments: 7
Kudos: 122





	Cold as Ice

Waking up in a freezing cold room was a terrible feeling, and one Jason had never wanted to experience. 

He slowly peeled his eyes open and glanced around. He was in an industrial meat freezer. Well. That explained the cold.

His arms were tied above his head to a meat hook and his feet were a few inches off the ground. He was still in his red hood gear, minus the hood, so freezing to death wasn’t an immediate concern; his suit was mostly insulated (he had learnt to have it that way after a few misadventures with Mr. Freeze). 

The room was rather dark, the only light coming from a flickering light bulb in the center of the freezer. Most of the other meathooks were holding up animal corpses, except, he noted, the one directly to his left.

Hung on the meat hook next to him was Nightwing, hanging upside down, unconscious. At first glance he looked fine, but with the bad lighting Jason couldn't be sure. Dick had been stripped of all his weapons, as he had. Jason was thankful that their domino masks were still in place though.

He looked around the freezer once more. On the far end was a door that was surely locked and what seemed to be a thermometer, though he couldn’t make out the numbers. Not that it really mattered. He knew they would only have a few hours at best. 

He turned back to look at Dick.

“Dick!” he hissed loudly.

Nothing.

He stretched his leg out as far as he could and nudged the acrobat with his foot, hissing his name again.

A startled “what” escaped from Dick as he jerked away from Jason’s foot. He watched as his brother took note of the situation. 

“Are you okay?” Dick asked.

“Yeah, nothing but bumps and bruises.” At least, what qualified as bumps and bruises to him. A lesser man probably wouldn’t have agreed with him. “You?”

“I think my left arm is dislocated and my head is a little fuzzy. Other than that I’m good.” Dick looked around again. “How long have we been in here?”

“15-20 minutes I think? I’ve only been conscious for 5 or so, so I’m guessing based on how cold I am.”

“The hell even happened? Last thing I remember we were fighting henchmen?” Dick craned his neck to look up at Jason. “How the heck did we end up here?” 

“No idea.”

“Crap.”

A moment of silence.

“D’ya know, if I had a nickel for every time I got locked in a freezer, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.” Dick said nonchalantly.

Jason let out a chuckle at the reference. 

“You got stuck in one of these before?” he inquired.

“Yeah. Back in my days as Robin,” Dick let out a huff, “Can’t say I miss the outfit. It didn’t do well against the cold.”

“I can imagine.” As fun as running around in a leotard and pixie boots had been, the suit was awful in the cold. Unlike Dick, however, he had agreed to wear pants in the winter, much to Bruce and Alfred’s relief.

“Any ideas on how to get out of here then, Mr. Two-Nickels?” Jason asked. Enough chit-chat. They really did need to get out before they froze to death. He was slowly losing the feeling in his fingers.

“Not really. Hold on, let me see if I can get myself loose.” Dick slowly pulled himself up to the point where he could reach the meat hook with his arms stretched out. Dick pulled at the knot a few times, before letting himself fall back. “Can’t undo it like that,” he panted. He waited a moment before pulling himself up again. “Let me see…if...I...can… shimmy it.” Each word punctuated with a groan as Dick tried to pull the knot off the hook. With a grunt, Dick grabbed the hook with his hands and, with a surprising show of strength for a man with a shoulder injury, lifted his legs enough to pass the knot over the hook. The moment it was off, Dick released the hook and tumbled to the ground.

He was quiet for long enough that Jason worried he’d knocked himself unconscious.

“Dick?”

His question was answered with a groan.

“M’good. G’ve me a sec.” 

He could hear Dick’s attempts to regulate his breathing. After a few moments, Dick sat up and untied his feet, albeit a bit slowly. His left arm was hanging uselessly at his side. If it hadn’t been dislocated before, it definitely was now.

He stood on shaky legs and walked over to Jason. He raised his good arm and pulled at the knot tying Jason’s hands. 

“I won’t be able to untie this with one hand,” Dick stated with a frown. “Do you have a knife or something?”

“I think they got rid of most of them…” Jason paused, slowly running through his arsenal in his head, “Check my right boot.”

Dick made a face, but he pulled off Jason’s boot. Once it was off, he held it upside down and a small knife tumbled out.

“Ha! They always miss the boot-knife!” Jason exclaimed, letting out a small hoot. He held as still as he could as Dick slowly cut the rope, then he dropped to the ground.

One problem solved. Now they just had to get out.

He put his boot back on, then walked to the door and tried the handle, in case they were lucky. As expected, it was locked. He gave it a good shove though, just to be sure. It didn’t budge.

“We ain’t getting out that way,” he said gesturing towards the door.

Now that he was free, he walked around the freezer. There was nothing else in it but them and the animal corpses. Shit.

“Do you think they would have noticed us missing yet?” he asked, walking back over to Dick.

“Probably not? Depends on how long we were out for. We might have missed a check-in but I have no idea what time it is.” Dick replied.

“Fuck.”

“Yup.”

The cold was slowly getting to them. Jason could no longer feel his ears or his nose. He could see Dick shivering, even though his brother was trying to stifle it.

“So what do we do?” Jason asked. There was no way that he was dying like this. His second death needed to be more spectacular than freezing in a meat locker.

Dick let out a shuddery breath. “I don’t know. Hope they realize somethings wrong before we freeze.”

“How’d you get out last time?” Jason asked, refusing to give up. He walked around the room again, just in case he had missed something.

“Batman got me out. Nearly froze to death. He refused to let me leave his side for months after that.” Dick said, sliding down the wall next to the door. He brought his knees up and wrapped his good arm around them. He was trying to conserve heat.

Nothing had magically appeared since the first time Jason had checked the room, so he made his way back to his brother, mimicking his position. He sat as close to Dick as possible.

“I guess we'll wait,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

* * *

He awoke to the sound of the giant metal door scraping against the floor. He had no idea how much time had passed, but judging by how cold he was, it must have been a long time. It took significantly more effort than it should have to peel his eyes open. He watched as Bruce strode into the freezer and for once he was glad to see the man. Bruce kneeled in front of him. Jason could see Bruce’s lips moving but he couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was just so tired. He closed his eyes as Bruce took off his cape and covered him with it. He panicked when he felt himself lift off the ground, but his limbs wouldn’t move. He was set down on something comfortable, his head was leaning on someone’s shoulder. Comforted by the fact that he had been found, he let sleep claim him once more.

* * *

He was warm. That was the first thing he realized upon waking up. He opened his eyes. He was laying in Bruce’s king-size bed, Dick curled up against him under multiple blankets. Bruce was sitting in a chair, snoring lightly. On Dick’s other side was Damian, plastered to his oldest brother's side. Tim and Cass were snoozing on the couch on the far side of the room, near the roaring fireplace. Or at least, he thought Cass was until she opened her eyes to look at him.

“Sleep,” she said, before closing her eyes and pulling her blanket back up.

And so, in the safety of Bruce’s room, he fell asleep.

* * *

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**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about medical stuff and google wasn't exactly forthcoming, so here's hoping that I'm not too inaccurate with some of the stuff in this fic.
> 
> Also, I apologize if Dick's escape is written a bit complicated? I think I explained it well, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.
> 
> Hope you guys liked it!


End file.
